Posted on 05/11/2008 7:27:08 PM PDT by RedRover
Schlock-shockmeister, Stephen King, recently told a group of high school kids, "The fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's not as bright."
Not as bright?
The military requires the ability to read texts at and around the 1200 Lexile mark. For those not in the education field, the Lexile measure is a text difficulty score. The measure is based on semantic difficulty and syntactic complexity. 1200, for instance, is the measure of a novel such as War and Peace.
On the other hand, Stephen King's novels are read by middle and high school students. The Lexile score for his most popular novels average at 895.
The Army or Stephen King? Truth to tell, Stephen King is just not as bright.
Grid showing differences between required levels of reading material. Stephen King novels average less than 900. The military requires reading that is above 1200.
Sources: MetaMetrics, Inc and Lorena Wilder, Creekside Middle School, Monument, Colorado
really gets old
like stale bread
it ceases to matter
in the pantry of
our collective consciousness...
DTG: 120300Z MAY 08
FM: OLD SARGE
TO: STEVIE KING
SU: YOUR OPINION OF TROOPS
1. SCREW YOU.
2. NOTHING FOLLOWS.
Ping!
Especially with all of the complex technology used in the military these days, along with the protocol and procedures that must be learned, I can’t fathom how anyone can logically conclude that the military is the place for illiterate idiots.
Anyone, that is, but a liberal idiot with an agenda.
LOL
Good on ya, Sarge!
Kinda like choosing between Hand and Lurch, dontcha think?
I love that banner ;~)
LOL!!
Stephen King, John Kerry and the rest of the libtard dems who make these statements only show us how detatched from reality they are. They have no idea how the majority of people in this country live or the sacrifice our military people make to enable them to continue to live in a free country so they can make ridiculous remarks such as this.
They really should keep their mouth shut to enable people to contemplate their ignorance instead of removing any doubt.
Hey, Old Sarge! This is the first time I’ve heard of a Lexile score, but it rang bells. Is it possible that a Lexile score of 12 would correlate to a GT of between 110-120?
Sounds about right to me!
I like that!
I’m snapping my fingers to that one, Daddy-O.
I could almost hear bongos in the background.
Most excellent poetry.
That might be so for officers, but not for enlisted. The Army writes tech and field manuals at the fourth grade level. The great majority of Army enlistees are not going to be able to read War and Peace. I say that as someone with almost 32 years of military service. But going back to King's statement, it was condescending, elitist and typical of the American hating left. Most people who can't read will either spend most of their lives in prison or they'll be flipping burgers at McDonalds.
As you say, King had a legitimate point to make. Fluency as a reader is essential to a successful career in any field these days. But being a liberal, he took a swipe at the men and women serving in Iraq rather than the illiterates in prison or on welfare.
i’m humbled.
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